Thursday, October 16, 2025

Photo: Personal hygiene products are laid out for storm evacuees at the Bethel Search and Rescue building in Bethel, Alaska on October 14, 2025. (Corinne Smith / KYUK) Donations are pouring into Bethel Search and Rescue in the wake of the catastrophic storm that hit the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta over the weekend. As KYUK’s Evan Erickson reports, the building has been buzzing with volunteers and recent evacuees, some of whom have lost everything. At the Bethel Search and Rescue building, families from villages hit hardest by Sunday’s storm grab items from long tables overflowing with clothes and essential goods. Volunteer Kaitlin Andrew says her father and other family members are still sheltering in the coastal community of Kwigillingok. “There was one I just had spoken with, he had mentioned that he can finally change his clothes.” The storm, remnants of Typhoon Halong, nearly completely destroyed the village and roughly 400 people sheltered at the school awaiting evacuation on Tuesday evening. “They’re messaging us and letting us know what they need over there right now.” Andrew says that within an hour of opening the donation center on Monday, totes and bags from community members quickly filled up the corner of the one-story building. “That pile over there was literally almost to the ceiling, until we started organizing things.” The donations include winter boots, baby formula, and basic hygiene products such as shampoo, toilet paper, and tampons. Most of the items are going directly to people already evacuated to Bethel. Some are being boxed up and sent to those still sheltered in coastal villages. Volunteer Angie Walter stacks three boxes filled with clothes for a family in the Nelson Island community of Nightmute. “The bottom box is mostly boots, boots, and there’s hats and gloves, pants and tops for a boy and a girl, and I guess maybe the dad and the mom.” Volunteers say that with winter just weeks away, more cold weather gear is needed. While some communities will be able to rebuild what was lost, others face a bleak future, or total uncertainty of whether their community will ever recover. Andrew, who still has family members stuck in the most affected area, says that all she and other volunteers can do is offer their support for people grappling with the concept of leaving behind their traditional homes. “Some of them don’t want to, because that’s where they grew up, and that’s their home. And so I think it’s just just to be there for them and to make sure that they know that they have a place.” Meanwhile, outside of the building, volunteers scramble to make space for roughly 10 pallets of goods that have just arrived from Anchorage. The donations are coming in from all over — and volunteers say they’re critical, with 100 people already evacuated to Bethel, and hundreds more on the way. (Courtesy International Indian Treaty Council / Facebook) This past Monday, many cultural observances were held in honor of Indigenous Peoples or Native American Day, including an annual event at Alcatraz Island in northern California’s Bay Area. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that this sunrise gathering features prayer, dancing, and songs despite the many closed National Parks, and in protest of President Trump’s plans to reopen Alcatraz as a prison. Historically, a large gathering of Native people occupied the island prison from 1969 to 1971. With the exception of 2013 during another government shutdown, the annual gathering has taken place with another one held on Thanksgiving Day. The International Indian Treaty Council hosted the event. Sarah Winnemucca. And during this week in 1891, people mourned the passing of Sarah Winnemucca, the first Native woman who published a copyrighted work in the U.S. Her book, “Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims”, was an autobiographical work published in 1883. Her birth name was Thocmetony (Shellflower).       Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.   Check out the latest episode of Native America Calling Thursday, October 16, 2025 – The fight to recognize Taffy Abel’s historic NHL achievement